Jury Deadlocks On Peeler's Fate

BRIDGEPORT — Jurors who convicted Russell Peeler of arranging to kill an 8-year-old murder witness and the child's mother deadlocked Monday over whether Peeler should die for his crime.

The family of Peeler's victims, Leroy ``B.J.'' Brown Jr. and B.J.'s mother, Karen Clarke, was stunned at the prospect of Peeler escaping the death penalty for a crime that devastated them and horrified the state.

The judge must then decide whether to impose a sentence of life in prison without chance of parole, or declare a mistrial that would allow the prosecution to seek the death penalty before a new jury.

A mistrial would apply only to the penalty phase of Peeler's capital trial, not his conviction 12 days ago by the same jury on charges of murder, conspiracy and two counts of capital felony. The two capital counts are murder of a child under age 16 and murder of two victims in the same crime.

The jurors concluded that Peeler, 28, sent his younger brother, Adrian Peeler, to kill B.J. and his mother.

Clarke and B.J. were killed two weeks after Russell Peeler, a drug trafficker, learned that B.J. was to testify against him in the May 1998 homicide of Clarke's fiance and Peeler's former drug partner, Rudolph Snead Jr.

To condemn Peeler to death under Connecticut law, the jury would have to decide whether the prosecution proved beyond all reasonable doubt the presence of an aggravating factor, such as the crime being committed in an especially cruel or heinous manner.

If the jurors found an aggravating factor, they then would have to determine whether it was outweighed by mitigating factors. Possible mitigating factors suggested by the defense included the death from cancer in 1993 of Peeler's mother, the fact that he already is serving a federal life sentence for drug trafficking and allegations that the crime was out of character and that Peeler played a minor role.

Peeler's is the second death-penalty trial since the legislature allowed jurors to weigh aggravating and mitigating factors. Before the new law, the finding of a mitigating factor automatically meant a sentence of life.

At 12:45 p.m. Monday, the second day of deliberations in the penalty phase of the trial, the jury reported that it could not decide whether mitigating evidence was outweighed by an aggravating factor or factors on the first capital count, the death of a child under age 16.

At 2:20 p.m., Ford told them to move on the second capital count. The jurors responded 35 minutes later with a second note, reporting that they could not agree whether the prosecution had proved aggravation in the deaths of two victims.

Ford asked them to deliberate further. By 4 p.m., the jury reported for the third time that it was deadlocked.